


lovers all are soldiers

by schweet_heart



Series: Biggles Fic [1]
Category: Biggles Series - W. E. Johns
Genre: Angst, Cousin Incest, Cousins, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, First Kiss, First Time, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Missing Scene, Mutual Pining, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Porn with Feelings, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-18
Updated: 2017-01-18
Packaged: 2018-09-18 07:12:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,638
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9373823
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/schweet_heart/pseuds/schweet_heart
Summary: “All right,” he says at length, and it’s clear now that he’s talking about something entirely different. “You know. The question is, what do you want to do about it?”“That depends on what you want to happen next,” Algy replies, surprised at his own daring. “We could forget this ever happened, and I could go back to bed. Or,” he hesitates. “We could...not.”Or: Biggles and Algy's feelings get the better of them on the long road back to France afterBiggles Flies East.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I think I may have shipped this pairing since before I knew shipping was a thing. In any case, it's been a while since I wrote this, but I hope you enjoy it anyway!

 

 

 

They scramble aboard in the early hours of the morning, tired and travel-stained, carrying little more than a piece of kit each. 

 

“Get some sleep,” Biggles tells him when they find their compartment. It's not much – two bunk beds, white sheets, a seat by the window, which has the curtains drawn and no lights, of course. “You look just about done in. I'll wake you for breakfast.”

 

He doesn't say if he's going to sleep too, and Algy doesn't ask, just drops his bag on the floor and undresses in silence. The upper bunk is thin and lumpy, and he feels odd, like there's a great open space beneath him. His throat is scratchy with the last of the desert sand, the heat of Palestine still under his skin.

 

“Good night,” he says. Biggles doesn't answer, just nods, and Algy closes his eyes on the knowledge that there are shadows in the train-car beyond those cast by the meager light of the moon.

 

He is aware of dreaming as if he were still awake. It is a strange sensation, something like the slow trickle of grains through an hourglass, the shudder of the train on the tracks that is also the roaring engine of the Camel around him and the guns rattling as he takes aim at the German in his sights. Then the plane goes down and down; there is a sound as if of a box crumpling, or a match being lit. Algy banks widely into the glare of the sun and thinks only of the resulting tiredness, conscious of the distance between them, of the desert receding behind. 

  

He’s awakened two hours later by nothing at all, and lies there staring into the darkness. The ceiling is too close, and he rolls off the bunk almost without thinking about it, reaching out to catch himself at the last second. Biggles is sitting by the window, the curtains pulled back, inevitable cigarette between his lips. He doesn't look at Algy.

 

“Nightmare?” He asks. Not a question.

 

“Sort of,” Algy admits. He holds onto the bunk for support, then sits on it, watching the bright tip of Biggles' cigarette in the darkness. “Sorry.”

 

Biggles shifts in his seat. The faint illumination from the window lights up his pale face with a bluish glow, and Algy shivers. He looks dead.

 

“Don't take it to heart,” Biggles says, as if reading his thoughts. “Though if you're going to have the screaming abdabs, do try to keep the volume down a bit. The poor blokes in the next carriage will think we're being murdered in our beds.”

 

“Sorry,” Algy says again, embarrassed. “Was I really that loud?”

 

He can see Biggles smile faintly, his face reflected in the glass. “You certainly gave me a turn, I don't mind saying. What was it this time, Egyptian mummies want to have their way with you?”

 

He turns to look at Algy now, and even in the dark his eyes are blow-torch hot, lit from the side by the quarter moon. Algy wets his lips, half shrugs. Biggles can be cruel sometimes, when he feels like it, and he's been even worse since Palestine. He will not look Algy directly in the face, as if trying to prove his own disinterestedness. Had Algy imagined that clasp of hands, the murmured words of caution and affection at the oasis? The memory seems so insubstantial now, back in the reality of civilisation, that it could almost have been a fever dream.

 

“Biggles,” he says, before he can think better of it. “What happened at Zabala?”

 

“When?”

 

“Don't be obtuse.”

 

Biggles inhales smoke. “I wasn't aware that I was,” he says slowly. Algy says nothing. Biggles looks out the window, light and shadow racing over his skin by turns, and finally he sighs. 

 

“My gunner shot down a Camel,” he says, voice even. "When we bombed the dummy aerodrome. There was rather a shortage of them about in Palestine, if you recall."

 

“You thought it was me.”

 

“The possibility did cross my mind.”

 

“For God's sake, why didn't you say something? You never even mentioned it.”

 

“What would be the point if I did? The thing's done; it can't be helped by talking.”

 

“No, but you can.”

 

Biggles ignores this. Algy crosses the carriage, all of two steps, and stops beside him, while Biggles stares defiantly out the frosted glass and blows out another stream of smoke, as if that might keep Algy from noticing that his fingers are trembling.

 

“Biggles,” he says. 

 

“Leave it alone, Algy, there's a good chap.” Biggles' voice is quiet. “Palestine's a long way off, and I'm tired.”

 

Their eyes meet in the glass, reflection on reflection, and Algy can see how true it is in the stretched-out thinness of Biggles' face. 

 

“In my nightmare,” he says. “I was dreaming about killing you in the desert.”

 

The frown deepens. “But you didn't kill me.”

 

“I came damn close to it.”

 

“You thought I was a German,” Biggles points out. “It’s hardly the same thing.”

 

“And you didn’t mean to kill the pilot either, I’ll wager. It's a bloody war, James. Sometimes people die.”

 

He reaches out a hand and clasps the still shoulder, not sure if he should, and Biggles glances at him sideways across the joined flesh. Algy seldom calls him by his first name; to do so invokes childhood ghosts that neither of them are quite sure what to do with. But somehow it seems appropriate here, with the two of them like ghosts themselves, poised between almost-death in one direction and probable destruction in the other.

 

“You're saying I should let it go.”

 

“I'm saying I know how it feels to think you've killed a – friend.”

 

Is that even the right word? Biggles' wry smile shows he doesn't think so.

 

“Don't sell yourself short,” he says, and damn him, Algy can feel himself blushing, of all the ridiculous things. At least, in the dark, there's no chance that Biggles can see and call him on it.

 

“I'm not,” he says, although he's fairly sure Biggles can tell when he's lying. “I just wanted to say that I know, that's all.”

 

Biggles stubs out the cigarette, looking away from Algy again at the pallid expanse of farmland outside their window. When he looks back, the light from the moon has gone behind a cloud and he's all shadows and angles, as sketchy as an ink drawing.

 

“All right,” he says at length, and it’s clear now that he’s talking about something entirely different. “You know. The question is, what do you want to do about it?”

 

“That depends on what you want to happen next,” Algy replies, surprised at his own daring. “We could forget this ever happened, and I could go back to bed. Or,” he hesitates. “We could...not.”

 

Biggles is silent for a moment. “And if we don't?”

 

“It's up to you,” Algy repeats. Biggles has always been the leader, even when they were children – only a few years before, although that seems like such a long time ago now. He was the one who climbed the highest and threw the farthest, as lithe as a jungle cat and just as ferocious, while Algy (Algernon Montgomery as he was then) could only look on helplessly in his lace and ribbons, hero-worshipping the other boy from afar. He would have gone to hell and back for his cousin, and has done so, and worse besides, and he is still here only because it is better than being anywhere else. 

 

Biggles is watching his face. 

 

“You're aware that this is somewhat unorthodox,” he says, in perhaps the gentlest voice Algy has ever heard from him. 

 

“Yes.”

 

“It could only be for tonight. Once we get back to France – we'd have to forget it. Can you do that?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“I just want to be clear that I can't – “

 

“James,” Algy says, taking another a step forward. “This isn't one of your missions that has to be planned out in advance. We both know the score. At least this way, if...at least this way, we won't have any regrets.”

 

Biggles is standing very still, very straight, and Algy can no longer see his eyes, but he doesn't move away as Algy steps closer, and if he doesn't respond when Algy kisses him, he doesn't pull away from the contact either. His lips are dry and warm, the scratching of his stubble like sand. Algy turns his head so that their foreheads touch, and says:

 

"That wasn't so difficult, was it?"

 

"No," Biggles allows, a glitter of amusement crossing his face. "But if that's your idea of grand romance, I pity any female who's set her sights on you. Didn't you learn anything from all those girl-friends of yours?"

 

Algy snorts. "It's hard to be romantic when your partner is such a cold fish," he points out. “But I do my best.”

 

That makes Biggles laugh. His posture is more relaxed now, though they're still standing close, with him half-leaning against Algy's shoulder, and Algy is conscious of how much weight Biggles has lost, how insubstantial he seems here in the dark. He wishes for light, the way he has done often since the beginning of the war, so that he can look at Biggles properly, but perhaps it is only the darkness that has allowed them to come so near to this; the dark, and the proximity of death, brought into the train carriage with them like baggage, stowed away beneath the bunks. Tentatively, Algy reaches up to touch Biggles' face. He flinches.

 

“Maybe we shouldn't...” he begins; stops. He looks at Algy apologetically. “I'm not very good at this.”

 

“Neither am I,” Algy admits. “But it's not like either of us is going to be judging.”

 

This time, Biggles kisses him. It's – interesting. He's not sure what he expected, only that it’s not this: a heat like tinder turning to dust; the touch of Biggles’ hands on his face, strangely questioning; and the tenderness of it, as if they’re both afraid they might break something. He has seen Biggles cradle dying pilots in his arms and soothe them into death, but he knows his cousin has never had time for flowers, or music, or any of that romantic guff, and Algy had thought – on the few occasions that he thought at all – that he would be a very practical lover, moving straight to the point without lingering on foreplay.

 

Instead, Biggles is quiet, almost intense. His lips move over Algy’s face and down to his neck, finding the pulse point at his throat, then back up to his mouth again, a languid progression that lights a fire in his groin and spreads all the way up his spine. 

 

When Biggles finally releases him, Algy gulps, and steps back. 

 

“Oh,” he says stupidly.   

 

He can’t be sure, but he thinks Biggles may be smiling.

 

“Not what you were expecting?”

 

“Not exactly,” Algy admits. “You – I thought you said you weren’t good at this.”

 

Biggles shrugs. “I haven’t had much practice.”

 

Algy huffs. “Neither have I. But you – “

 

He can’t find the words to explain, so he just stops talking. He touches Biggles’ mouth with the tips of his fingers. They're both looking at each other now, aware of the need to make this special, to make it last, but it's like they have no idea how to begin. Finally Biggles seems to make a decision, kissing Algy's fingertips and stepping into his space, his movements sure and certain now that he has made up his mind.

 

“Get your kit off,” he says, and Algy has to hide a smile at how much it sounds like an order. He does as he's told, stripping out of his undershirt and tossing it back on the bunk. Without saying anything, he begins unbuttoning Biggles' uniform, aware of the tremulous heat between them, of Biggles' hair-trigger patience. It's not something they haven't done before, when one or the other of them was too injured to shift for himself, but now, knowing what they are about to do, it takes on a new intimacy that Algy hadn't been expecting. 

 

He clears his throat. “Yours, too.”

 

“All right.” Biggles strips in silence. When he's down to his small-clothes, practically naked, he hooks his fingers in the belt-loops of Algy's pyjama bottoms and kisses him again, dragging the fabric of his own trousers down over his hips. His hands are small as a girl’s, calloused, and the brush of his thumbs against Algy’s skin makes him think of those same hands at the controls of a plane, steadying it with the same delicate touch. “Done this bit before, have you?”

 

“Only the once,” Algy says, and it’s like trying to keep his breath in the middle of a spin. “And never with you.”

 

 

*

 

 

The train compartment isn’t exactly made for trysts of any kind; it’s too small, too full of angles, the walls too thin and the floor too flimsy. It’s enough. Biggles has him pressed against the ladder of the bunk, the coolness of it contrasting with his heated skin, but somehow Algy is the one anchoring them both, a hand on Biggles’ hip, his neck, legs splayed slightly to keep his balance against the rocking of the carriage over the tracks. 

 

The flick-flick-flick of shadows on Biggles’ naked skin makes Algy feel as if everything were underwater. The desert is still there under his palms, but muted; confined to the bruises on Biggles’ arms and torso, the fading scars from where Algy had come close, far too close, to killing his best friend. Biggles, with the enviable elasticity of youth, always seems to manage to bounce back from whatever the war throws at him, but Algy wonders sometimes if his heart is quite so resilient as his body. He thinks of debris in the desert, of fire and bullets and gravity. It seems unfair, sometimes, that death should have so many advantages when it comes to stalking them, while they have so few opportunities for escape.

 

Biggles moves against him slowly, taking his time. Even stripped of his uniform he has that air of straightforward command about him, all tactics and strategy, spontaneity sublimated to intent. Algy is less circumspect.

 

“For God’s sake, Biggles,” he says. “At the rate you’re going, the sun will have come to the point before we do.”

 

“I should have known you’d be impatient,” Biggles says, half facetious, half amused. “That’s the trouble with you young bucks these days, no stamina to speak of —“

 

“I’ll give you stamina,” Algy growls, but there’s very little threat behind it. It’s almost claustrophobic here, like this, the air thick between them with the smell of sex and Biggles’ cigarettes, and he knows Biggles feels it too by the tremor in his hands as he touches him, the way his fingers skid against Algy’s hip and slide almost by accident over the curve of his thigh. Algy catches his hand before it can withdraw, guiding him down, his forehead braced against Biggles’ shoulder.

 

“ _Please_ , James.” 

 

He feels Biggles hesitate, then nod once, sharply.

 

“Turn around,” he says, and Algy is gratified to hear the edge of breathlessness in his voice, low as it is. “Turn around and I’ll — “

 

“Yes, all right.”

 

Algy turns; Biggles’ hand follows him round, catching on his skin, dipping lower and pressing inside him, and Algy feels like he imagines dry wood must feel at the moment of a spark. He lets out a rough sound before he can help himself, and Biggles bites at his neck: a warning. 

 

“I think I have something somewhere,” he says. “We might as well do this properly — it’ll hurt otherwise. Wait a moment.”

 

Algy waits with his flushed cheek against the bunk-rail. He should probably feel exposed, naked in the dark cabin and on the brink like this, but finds that he doesn’t. It’s only Biggles, and they are after all the two of them intimate enough for this; they can have no fear of one another. In a moment, Biggles is back, something cool and gelatinous on his fingers, and Algy lets him work without self-consciousness, acclimatising himself to the disquieting pressure of those fingers inside him. 

 

When Biggles enters him it is with the same business-like efficiency that he does everything else, steadying Algy with both hands at his waist and pushing forward with a purposeful roll of his hips. Algy bites his lip against the intrusion, aware of the need to be quiet, letting Biggles read the strangeness and discomfort of it in the quickening of his breath and the slight breathy grunts he can’t help but make. Once fully seated, Biggles is pressed along the length of his body, his skin radiating an unnatural heat, lips damp and parted at the nape of Algy's neck. He seems stunned into immobility, swaying a little on his feet in time to the motion of the train, so it is up to Algy to move for him, pressing back experimentally at first and then with more abandon as the little shocks of pleasure stoke a sudden hunger in his body. Biggles sucks in a breath, clutching at Algy's shoulders to stay upright. His voice is a bitten-off oath.

 

"You'll be the death of me," he mutters, a quiet admission Algy thinks perhaps he isn’t meant to hear. In any case, he deems it better not to respond, and after a moment Biggles picks up the same slightly erratic, train-ride rhythm, one hand moving to the front of Algy’s body to grip the hardness there as well. There is a faint awkwardness to the gesture, as if he is not entirely sure of the etiquette involved in taking hold of another man's cock, and Algy lets go of the bunk long enough to reassure, his hand tangling encouragingly with Biggles’ own. Their shared grip tightens as Biggles strokes down the length of him, thumbing the head and along the raised vein of the frenulum with gel-slicked fingers, and the resulting friction nearly makes Algy buckle at the knees. It's tumbling out of a plane without a parachute, the moments after a close-run dog-fight, and a sudden, successful detonation all at once, and Algy can't help but let the sounds tear out of him as Biggles fucks him into his own palm, moaning out loud until Biggles puts his other hand over his mouth and hisses, “Shhh,” into his ear.

 

Algy bites at Biggles’ fingers, a silent retort that he knows Biggles comprehends, because a moment later he laughs, helpless and muffled against the curve of Algy’s neck, a sound Algy can’t recall having heard for years and even then not as careless as this. The familiarity of it touches something in him — his heartbeat catching on the edges of his chest — and he’s coming on the next thrust, his body bowing soundlessly back against Biggles' chest, head pressed into the sweaty juncture between shoulder and throat and Biggles all around him; Biggles holding him up.

 

 

*

 

 

Out of all of it, Algy thinks later that waking the next morning is the strangest and by far the most difficult part of the whole experience. Biggles in the early morning light is peaceful and at rest, curled around Algy like a tousle-headed comma, the stern lines of his face relaxed in sleep and one hand splayed over Algy’s midriff as if to keep him from falling backward over the edge during the night. Biggles’ physical attractiveness is not something Algy has ever been unaware of, but prior to this it has always been a mere fact unworthy of note, the same way the sky is blue or that it is madness to cross the line under ten thousand feet. Now, however, he finds himself unable to look at Biggles without encountering anew some aspect of his cousin’s face that he had heretofore overlooked or striven to ignore. 

 

Biggles stirs; the corners of his mouth turn down. Algy smoothes the resulting wrinkle in his forehead with one thumb and thinks, for one, breathless moment, of being suspended over a pit and having no wings to stave off the drop.

 

“Morning already, is it?” Biggles says with no inflection, not opening his eyes. He has to be aware of their position, tangled together on the lower bunk, but seems in no mood to do anything about it. “Have we far to go, do you think?”

 

Algy swallows. “I imagine we’ll be coming up on the station presently.”

 

Biggles doesn’t ask how he knows, but stretches a little and sighs, and when his eyes open they’re slate-grey like the sky outside, studying him with frank curiosity.

 

“Not in France quite yet, then,” he says, somewhat inaccurately, and nudges up to kiss Algy on the lips with unexpected clumsiness, as if whatever conviction had gripped him the night before had dissipated with the morning mist. Algy wants to laugh at him, but fears being misunderstood, so he only smiles and says, “No regrets, then?”

 

“It’s hardly sporting to regret a thing once one has gone and done it,” Biggles says. Then, more quietly, “No, Algy. I have no regrets.”

 

“Well, I have one,” Algy says, and kisses him again before he can ask what it is, and keeps kissing him until he knows Biggles has understood by the curve of his lips and the slight shift of his hips beneath the blankets. "But it's nothing that won't keep. There is a war on, after all."

 

Later, the same faint smile crosses Biggles’ lips as he watches Algy dress, a new appreciation lighting his eyes.

 

“I dare say you’re right, laddie,” he says, sitting up and fumbling for a cigarette to press between his lips. “I dare say you’re right.”

 


End file.
